3D Animation
Animation in general goes back to something as simple
as the stick figures you may have drawn on your notebook
- flip the pages and view your animation. Studios like
Disney pioneered 2D animation with it's beautiful hand
painted (rendered) scenes and characters. 3D is where animation
has evolved to, with and entirely different process and
a completely different quality yet the delivery is still
the same - as frame by frame video.
Creating an animation in 3D involves setting up a scene complete
with everything inside of it. This may include furniture,
people and other features. Then the animated parts are
added, which in the case of virtual
tours is normally just
the camera itself. The animation may extend to characters,
doors, the wind, cars and practically any other kind of
object. Each animation is really an instruction to an object
to do something or move somewhere/somehow over a period
of time.
A simple example of an animated 3D
camera is to instruct
it that at 0 seconds be at point 'A' then at 5 seconds
be at point 'B'. The computer interpolates everything in
between and generates a series of frames that
show every point within a split second over that 5 seconds.
To take it further you might want to animated a door along
the way by telling it that at 2 seconds it is to rotate
90 degrees (open) over a period of 1.5 seconds.
The two simple examples above are nothing compared to
character animation!
Moving 3D people in lifelike ways is a challenge for only
the best 3D animators.
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